A recent study from Psychology Prof. Timothy Salthouse found that human cognitive processing speed, memory and reasoning abilities peak at age 22 and begin to see noteworthy declines after age 27.
The study, which will be published in the April issue of the academic journal Neurobiology of Aging, was conducted during the past seven years at the University and involved about 2,000 participants aged 18 to 60.
Participants took part in 16 assessments measuring specific cognitive abilities. Salthouse separated the results of these tests by the ages of the participants and determined which age groups attained the highest scores on each test. The assessments showed that participants’ processing speed and memory performed at optimum levels between the ages of 22 and 27, whereas general knowledge of vocabulary and information continued to increase until age 60.
Salthouse stressed that these results do not necessarily mean people become “senile” after 27, however. He described the tests as a sort of “mental gymnastics,” as experimenters tried to “take away all the role of experience and just look at how quick and adaptable you are when you’re not really doing things in the context of your everyday life.”
Therefore, to say that old age begins after we’ve reached our peak performance in these tests is “a very narrow perspective,” Salthouse said.
He also mentioned that past studies about aging measured changes in individual participants’ performances on these cognitive tests after some time passed. Results of these studies, however, suggested that participants of these studies “don’t necessarily perform any worse [after five years] even though comparisons with other people of similar ages suggest differences should exist.”
This discrepancy, Salthouse said, likely is because participants learn how to take the tests and therefore improve their performances when taking the tests a second time. Salthouse sought to limit the effects of retesting, according to his study.
Graduate psychology student Elliot Tucker-Drob, who aided Salthouse in conducting the study, said University research will continue to investigate declines in cognitive function associated with aging.
“One of the things that we’re interested in is whether declines in memory, reasoning and speed of processing occur independently or to different extents for different people,” Tucker-Drob said. This research will help scientists determine “the things we can do to prevent against these cognitive declines.”
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